When it is desirable for a car to appear on screen, for example in a car advert or as part of a film, there are many considerations to be taken into account. For example, both time and money are required to transport a car to the location of filming. Even upon transportation of the car, requirements regarding the car specification can change at the last minute. For example, during the designing, development and manufacturing process, the bodywork design can change rapidly. This means that, to capture the full breadth of the campaign in a car advert, which are often filmed before the design is finalised, it would be necessary to film several cars of different models, specifications and colours. This would be expensive and time-consuming, and the availability of the car models is often extremely limited.
Digital effects can be used to alter certain aspects of a car's appearance in post-production, and this approach can at least partially alleviate certain problems detailed above. Constructing a digital model of an entire car using digital effects without a physical model upon which to base the effects is possible, but is time consuming and relatively expensive. Further, this method does not provide the director of the film or advert with a framing reference, and any desired interaction of the car with people or the environment must be similarly digitally created.
Motion tracking is a well-known and common visual effects technique, and involves tracking the movement of ‘markers’ which are placed on a physical model. The data generated by this tracking allow a digital model to be created. The produced data are representative of the movement of the trackers.
One approach used in the field of car advertising is to film a generic car using motion tracking techniques, then use digital effects to overlay this generic car with a digital model of a car which conforms to the required specifications. This approach allows for flexibility in post-production, and removes the need to transport the specific car model to the location of filming. However, there are problems with this approach, for example if the car has physical features which extend beyond the boundaries of the desired digital model—the CGI silhouette—then time must be spent removing these features from the digital model. Additionally, interactions with the environment may be difficult to create realistically.
The present invention seeks to address these problems by providing a relatively small vehicle having at least some dimensionally adjustable specifications.